TomÃ¡s designs challenges without regrets'Trading Spaces' star to speak at Expo for Women

May 30, 2008|JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO Tribune Staff Writer

Hildi Santo Tomás makes no apologies. The interior designer who has been a mainstay on all eight seasons of TLC's "Trading Spaces" has made a career out of shocking homeowners with convention-defying room makeovers that employ everything from cardboard furniture to wine-label wallpaper. "I don't regret things," she says by telephone from her parents' home in Raleigh, N.C. "If the homeowners knew what they wanted, they should have done it before they called the show. I always live with the intention of taking things to the edge." Tomás will discuss that philosophy Saturday at The Women's Alliance's 2008 Expo for Women at Century Center in South Bend. The two-day expo, which begins today, includes 150 exhibitors representing everything from beauty and fashion to healthy living and, Tomás' specialty, interior design. "I don't understand when people say, 'Someday I'm going to do this,' " she says. "I always think, 'What are you waiting for?' I don't know if that makes me different, but we only have a moment, so why not make it happen?" Tomás was born in Raleigh, the middle daughter of Cuban-born parents, and long before she would discover a career called interior design, she was rearranging and organizing her sisters' rooms. She studied industrial relations and economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and moved to Washington, D.C., after college to work as a stockbroker and financial analyst. After a brief stint working in New York City for a financial services firm that catered to Latin American countries, Tomás decided to make her part-time hobby a full-time obsession. In 1989, shortly after returning to Raleigh, she launched Working Girls, an interior design business and workroom. She then moved to Atlanta, where she continued her design business and became a partner at Third Millennium Development Inc. Tomás was recommended for the "Trading Spaces" pilot and cast as one of the original designers of the Emmy-nominated television show, which has gone through several changes since its premiere in September 2000. "We were the first (home makeover) reality show," Tomás says. "The original designers, like Frank and Doug and Laurie, we've been in people's living rooms for a long time. People know us. I think a lot of the show's success is because a lot of our designs are out of the box and on the edge. People want to see what we come up with next." That has certainly been true of Tomás' work. During her tenure, she has memorably stapled 7,000 silk flowers to the walls of a bathroom, glued 65-pounds of feathers to the walls, ceiling and floor in a bedroom, and used sand as an indoor floor covering, a paintball gun for an alternative wall treatment and hay as an organic wall covering. Tomás says she's currently using roof flashing on a ceiling in a room of a "Trading Spaces" episode that has yet to air. "It's something everyone may have on their roof, but they've never thought about using it on their ceiling," Tomás says. So where does she come up with such ideas? "You know even my mother asks me that," Tomás says. "I was born with the gift of creativity and I challenge myself constantly. I really push the homeowners to the edge, even if they fight me all the way. I just know I have to outdo myself." Tomás knows her particular design aesthetic may not be for everyone, but she says there are plenty of tips and tricks viewers can learn even if they plan to leave the hay and sand outside. "The first thing I do is look at what (the homeowners) have and what we can use or modify," Tomás says. "Take everything out of the room and only bring things in that are important to you. Maybe the lamps in the bedroom will look better in the living room." "Trading Spaces" also has proven time and time again that even Tomás' avant garde designs don't have to cost more than $1,000. She says the show's designers often shop at stores such as the Home Depot, Marshall's and Target, among others, to find accent pieces at a bargain price. "Thrift stores are a great place to find things, but you have to visualize," Tomás says. " 'This chest is cool and the wood is in good shape, so I should stain it. Or the wood is messed up, so I should paint it.' " Although her designs are often among the show's most memorable episodes, Tomás says, she would rather have her work serve as an inspiration for viewers to tap into their own creativity rather than provide a blueprint to copy. "I've been in people's houses and I've seen that they've done something I originally did on TV," Tomás says. "If the person down the street paints their kitchen yellow, don't paint your kitchen yellow. Don't do what your neighbors are doing. Be original and take a risk."Staff Writer Jeremy D. Bonfiglio: jbonfiglio@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6244